The complete history of eyewear and eyeglasses may never be known because so many tales have been told about the origin of glasses it is impossible to separate the facts from the fiction. The ancient Romans were said to have used water filled glass globes to read books, making it safe to say that humans have been looking through glass and learning about its effects on vision for many centuries.
Most people believe eyeglasses were probably first invented in Italy around 1280-1300 when it was discovered they were useful to cure just farsightedness. An Italian named Salvino Armati is credited with developing glass lenses in 1285. An Italian monk, Allesandro Spina is given credit for making the invention known to the public and by the 14th century, craftsmen in Venice were making finely ground glass disks called “lenses” due to their similarity in shape to lentil beans. The earliest lenses were convex only and when people with farsightedness learned that the little lenses with thick centers helped them see better, people quickly began wearing them. Eyewear found its way to China by the fifteenth century and by 1604 concave lenses had been invented in Europe and became the standard remedy for nearsightedness.
Eyewear has come a long way and today, eyeglasses, contacts and sunglasses help billions of men and women all over the world to see more clearly and help protect their eyes in the process. Today, contact lenses have become just as popular as eyeglasses and contacts actually do a better job of curing defective vision than standard glasses. Laser surgery procedure can now cure some vision problems, but eyewear is still very popular all over the world. Today, modern glasses can be worn for pleasure and convenience as both an aid to vision, and as a fashion accessory too.
Modern eyewear.comes in a vast array of shapes, styles and designs and advances in materials and technology have made wearing eyeglasses easier, and more comfortable than ever before. New plastics and modern metals have enabled manufacturers to create eyewear of every description for every purpose imaginable.
Whether or not you need vision-correcting eyewear is determined by the shape and condition of your eye itself. If an eyeball is too short or shallow, the image will focus behind the retina and results in farsightedness or Hyperopia where people can see distant objects clearly, but nearby objects look blurry. When the eyeball itself is too deep, the image focuses in front of the retina and causes Myopia or nearsightedness. Nearsighted people can see close objects clearly and distant objects will be blurry.
Presbyopia is another common vision problem and is associated with middle-age when the lens of the eye loses it elasticity the condition causes people to be farsighted. Astigmatism causes blurry vision due to irregular curvature of the cornea that makes it impossible for light rays to focus on a single point. All four conditions, Hyperopia, Myopia, Presbyopia and Astigmatism are all vision problems that are easily and commonly corrected by modern eyewear today.
